


The Kind of Intimacy, or Becoming You and Me

by givesmevoice



Category: Sex Education (TV)
Genre: F/M, Feelings, Jakob is the most emotionally available person on this show, Jean puts her therapist hat on for herself sometimes, background Ola/Lily, background Ola/Otis, just talk it out dummies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:41:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22335727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/givesmevoice/pseuds/givesmevoice
Summary: "You spoke to me so frankly and honestly. Something about you, about how grounded you are, how already warm and welcoming you felt - I needed more of it."Jean comes to Jakob to let him know that she's ready to open herself to him and the kind of intimacy he's looking for.
Relationships: Jean Milburn/Jakob Nyman
Comments: 3
Kudos: 91





	The Kind of Intimacy, or Becoming You and Me

Jean sighed and closed her eyes against the shifting light filtering in her bedroom windows. It was Sunday, and much later than she was usually out of bed. It had been two days since she went to her doctor, two days since she saw Jakob so fleetingly across the hall at the school. She didn’t have the courage to say anything to him then. He had made his intentions clear as day when he told her  _ again _ that he wanted something that she didn’t seem to be ready for. He had such a frank and forthright manner of speaking that could cut into her like a knife. She had felt like she was going to be physically ill when she walked out of the room. She didn’t think she could chalk it up to morning sickness, not yet. She had never felt so much like her stomach had just dropped out of her body as she walked away from him, his words echoing in her brain.

_ You’re not ready for the kind of intimacy I’m looking for. _

She opened her eyes and took another deep breath. Honestly, she would have gone back to him even without this latest development. She would have driven to his house and said that she wanted the kind of intimacy he was looking for. She wanted that intimacy with him. But she was so scared and so used to being alone, queen of her own domain. But now she truly didn’t know what to do or say or ask of him. She didn’t even know if she wanted to keep this baby. For the past two days she had thought of almost nothing else except what she could possibly do. She could tell Jakob she wanted him back, she wanted intimacy...and keep the baby. She could tell Jakob she wanted him back, she wanted intimacy...and not keep the baby. She could move far far away and never be intimate with any man ever again and keep the baby and never let Jakob know. In some ways that was an incredibly appealing option. She wouldn’t risk rejection if she never opened herself to Jakob the way he seemed to naturally open himself to her.

She had put her therapist hat on many times over the past few days about this. What would she tell a client who came to her in this exact scenario? Jean thought she might ask the woman about how she felt about getting back together with her partner. Or whether her partner already had children. Or whether she had children. Jean also would ask how her patient felt about the prospect of co-parenting with her ex-partner. Would he be a good father? Would the stress and drama of dealing with an ex-partner be too great to bear through raising a child together? After all, she and Remi had been fairly happily married when Otis was born, and yet she still felt stress and drama of dealing with Remi as a father even WHILE he was her husband. After the divorce, obviously, he was a largely absent figure and she felt that she mostly raised Otis on her own.

Jakob was a wonderful father. His girls were smart and kind and funny. They adored him and he clearly loved them with everything he was. He put their happiness before his own, always. But his decision to have a vasectomy did seem to signal that he wanted to keep that shop closed. She hadn’t been in a relationship since Remi, but assumed her own shop was closed. She had never even considered the tiny small fraction of a chance that she could get pregnant from sex with Jakob.

The plan of moving far far away and never being intimate with another man ever again and keeping the baby was starting to sound even more appealing when something else Jakob said surfaced in her mind.

_ Fuck the fear. _

She knew she couldn’t run away scared from this man, from this problem. He had opened himself so much to her, made himself vulnerable in ways she never did and in ways no other man had ever even come close to with her. She didn’t really want to move away from him - she wanted to be with him and share the intimacy he wanted with her. And she knew that what she had to do now was apologize to him. Really and truly apologize for kissing Remi, for not communicating with Jakob, for being so stuck inside her head that she couldn’t allow him into her heart when he had so eagerly welcomed her into his.

On the drive to his house, she wondered if she should have called. He might have answered. She thought he looked at her like he wanted to talk to her, when they saw each other at the school. He might have been happy to hear from her, happy to ask her back to his house. He also might not have answered. He might not have been happy to hear from her, and tell her what he told her the other day: that he couldn’t risk the kind of hurt that might come from letting her back in. The kind of hurt that would mean he couldn’t even get out of bed in the morning. So she didn’t call. He didn’t usually take jobs over Sundays - he needed a weekend, too. She suspected he’d be home, and she hoped he would let her in.

He was taking in his shopping from the van when she stopped in front of his house. He turned and looked at her. His expression didn’t change and he turned back to bring his bags into the house. Taking a deep breath, Jean turned off her car and opened her door.

“Jakob…” She had no idea if he even heard her, so she walked a little closer to the house, only to see him heading back towards the front door. “Jakob.” She had always liked the way his name felt in her mouth, on her tongue. He stood silently in the doorframe. “May...I come in? I wanted to talk to you…”

“Ja,” he answered, shortly but not curtly, standing aside to let her in. “I have one bag left to bring in.” She nodded and wandered a little further into the den, wondering whether it would be weird to sit on the same couch they’d had sex on multiple times. She barely has a chance to decide whether to sit down when he comes back inside, closing the door behind him a little harder than he might have needed to. “Come into the kitchen.” Jean nodded, although it was pointless since he wasn’t looking at her. 

“You’ve gotten enough for a feast, Jakob!” she can’t help but exclaim, watching Jakob pull a beautiful array of vegetables from his bags. He looks at her, and all she wants is for a hint of smile to grace his visage.

“Ola’s girlfriend is coming for dinner tonight. I hope this will go better than the last time I had dinner with someone Ola was dating.” Jean bites her lip, embarrassed, but glances back up to see that Jakob has a small, teasing smile on his face. It gives her exactly the confidence she needs to start talking about...what she came to talk about.

“I...I wanted to talk about something. About us.” She takes a hesitating breath, waiting for an interruption that she should know by now wouldn’t come. Not from Jakob. “I want to start by apologizing to you for...betraying your trust. For kissing Remi, for minimizing its significance in the relationship that you and I were only just beginning to build. For not being open to the kind of intimacy you’re looking for.”

“Jean…” Jakob stops for a moment, contemplating his next words. “You know how I feel about you, but if you aren’t ready for the kind of intimacy I’m looking for...you do not need to apologize. What Otis said about you, you always want what’s best for other people, but you need to know what’s best for you. If what is best for you is not with me…”

Jean already feels like she could cry. She knew this would be hard, but looking at this man, his scruff turning back into beard, his blue eyes so intense they could burn you, she could barely find the words she needed. “You speak to me and look at me with a frankness and emotional openness that sometimes frightens me.” She had often thought that but was never able to put it into words. “Do you remember...the second time we had sex? Here, when I came to tell you that it wasn’t just the pheromones? You...looked at me in a way no man had ever looked at me before. Like you wanted me, but as though I was every bit your equal. Even, well, even when Remi and I were first together, he looked at me like I was a prize he’d won. Or that he was the champion, after fourteen times asking me out he finally succeeded and I was finally in bed with him.”

Jakob was quiet, and she wondered whether he was reflecting on that time they had sex here, how he held her and how he watched her. How he had smiled afterwards and touched her hair, her back, her stomach. Or she wondered if he thought about the fact that Remi asked her out fourteen times before she said yes.

“It wasn’t even just that, you know,” Jean continued. “Even before we had sex. Even before you kissed me. You spoke to me so frankly and honestly. Something about you, about how grounded you are, how already warm and welcoming you felt - I needed more of it. Remi had to ask me out fourteen times before I said yes? I would’ve torn every appliance, every tap, every door from its place in my house to get you to come back and speak to me like that again. I wanted you to come back and talk to me and look at me and kiss me and sleep with me with a ferocity I’ve never known or felt before.”

“I like the way you listen,” Jakob said softly. “I thought you were a strange woman, but when I sat across from you and you asked about my scrotum, I knew you would listen intently to whoever was really supposed to be talking about his scrotum.” Jean couldn’t help but smile and laugh at that. At that disastrous first conversation.

“I didn’t think you would ever come back and work on my bathroom. Until you told me about really noticing and acknowledging your scrotum at five years old.”

“What else is it you’ve come to talk to me about?” Jakob’s tone is warmer, but she can tell that he really wants to get to the meat of this conversation as quickly as possible.

“I...I don’t care that you’re not an intellectual like Remi is. I think you are much more in touch with your own feelings than Remi is, and...I think you understand your feelings better than I understand mine sometimes. I told Maureen Groff that I was too used to being independent to be in a relationship with you, before I realized after several Three-Legged Monkeys that I’d made a colossal mistake in ending things with you. That what I was really afraid of was going from a  _ me  _ to a  _ we _ with  _ you _ . You said at dinner that you had been alone for a long time, and Otis said that I had been, too. But what I didn’t realize, that you did, is that...I didn’t want to continue being alone. I was alone because I thought it might be safer, but…”

“It’s not.” Jakob sighed, closing his eyes. “You’re right. I didn’t even think about sleeping with anyone until you, but I didn’t want to be alone forever. I didn’t think you did, either.”

She doesn’t want to, God she doesn’t want to be alone anymore. Jean also doesn’t want to start crying, but God she can’t help it anymore. Jakob crosses the kitchen to enfold her in a gentle hug, so gentle it almost makes her heart break. 

“Can...can we try again?” Jean asks this softly; so much more than Jakob might realize hangs in the balance.

“Do you want to? I think I have made my feelings about you very clear, Jean.”

Jean nods, wiping another tear away before Jakob hands her a Kleenex. “I do…”

“But…?” Jakob looks at her before looking away, now afraid that she would break his heart just when it seemed as thought she could mend it.

“I’m scared, Jakob. It’s been so long since I let someone, a man, into my life and…” Jean trails off. “What if the best I can do is to be a  _ you and me _ , and not a  _ we _ ? After all, we’re both coming into this with our own families and emotional scars and needs and, how will we find a place for all of it together?”

Jakob nods, reaching his hands out to take both of Jean’s. “Would you like to stay for dinner?” Jean bites her lip and smiles. 

“Do you think it’ll go better than the last time I had dinner with you and someone Ola was dating?” Jakob smiles, that bright and charming smile that can literally make Jean weak at the knees. He shakes his head, joining her laughter. “Although I must say I did find your thorough enjoyment of that dinner to be rather sexy.” 

“You are a strange woman.” Jakob kisses her cheek gently, so achingly softly. “We will talk later, ja?” Jean nods, knowing that this was only half of a very large step forward for her, for him and her. For them.

**Author's Note:**

> I had originally tried to fit everything Jean needed to say to Jakob into a single chapter, but I wouldn't be able to fully engage in that discussion the way it deserves. Next chapter will be incoming soon.


End file.
